TWINS TRIVIA is hopefully a fun and informative site that will help you to better enjoy the Minnesota Twins and their wonderful history. “History never looks like history when you are living through it” – John Gardner, former Secretary of Health

Tag Archives: Frank Viola

In baseball, a pickoff is an act by a pitcher, throwing a live ball to a fielder so that the fielder can tag out a baserunner who is either leading off or about to begin stealing the next base. Twins … Continue reading →

Odds are that you will not recognize the player in this picture but he is still in the Twins organization and has been on the Fort Myers Miracle coaching staff since 2006. He played in the big leagues for 18 … Continue reading →

Some time ago I did a piece on the length of MLB games after the league announced its changes to quicken the pace of play prior to the 2015 season that I called Looking back at the pace of play … Continue reading →

The 2016 MLB will take place June 9, 2016 in Secacus, New Jersey and the Minnesota Twins will have the 17th selection this year. There are already numerous mock drafts being published but as normal they are all over the … Continue reading →

With the Twins on a roll and their starting pitchers pitching well this might not be a good time to bring back bad memories but I couldn’t help myself after seeing that the New York Yankees were not good hosts … Continue reading →

Ricky Nolasco earned career win #100 in the Twins’ win over the Red Sox. Nolasco is the 14th pitcher to earn career win #100 while wearing a Twins uniform, and ten of them did it in a home game. Some … Continue reading →

I thought that with all the attention this year on the length of games that it would be fun to take a look at some of the quickest nine inning games in Twins history in terms of wall clock time. … Continue reading →

I have been out to the CenturyLink Sports Complex several times this week primarily to watch some baseball as about 107 men and women participate in the annual Twins Fantasy Camp which runs from January 10-17. This year there are eight … Continue reading →

For many years now the Minnesota Twins organization has always looked unfavorably at pitchers that issue too many bases on balls. If you eliminate 2011 and 2012 the Twins have been in the top three teams in the American League … Continue reading →

As 2014 is coming to an end it is a good time to look back on another Twins season, their fourth in a row without post season play. But you have to be a winner to make post season play … Continue reading →

Minnesota Twins pitchers allowed 147 home runs in 2014. The fewest home runs allowed by a Twins pitching staff in a full season of 162 games occurred in 1976 when that pitching staff gave up just 89 round trippers to the … Continue reading →

A pitcher gets credit for a quality start (QS) any time he allows three earned runs or less in a start that lasts at least six innings. John Lowe who was writing for the Philadelphia Inquirer at the time developed and coined the … Continue reading →

When Minnesota Twins pitcher Yohan Pino will made his Major League debut Thursday night at 30 years, 175 days old at Target Field against the Chicago White Sox. He became the oldest Twin (since 1961) to make his big league debut. Yohan became … Continue reading →

Back in 1981 the Minnesota Twins used their first round pick (eleventh overall) in the June Amateur draft to select power hitting third baseman Mike Sodders from Arizona State University. With their second selection in the draft and 37th pick overall the Twins … Continue reading →

The Twins have a reputation now days of bringing their young players, particularly their young pitchers along very slowly but that has not always been the case. In today’s game pitches are counted and innings are watched from year to … Continue reading →

One of the most frequent requests that I receive on this web site is from folks that are looking to find the names of the Twins pitchers that have won 20 or more games in a season so I have … Continue reading →

A list of Minnesota Twins pitchers with the best Twins career ERA’s with a requirement of having pitched at leat 500 innings in a Twins uniform. Only Dean Chance has an Twin career ERA of under 3.00 and only 18 … Continue reading →

The Twins have been in Minnesota for 53 years and have played 8,455 games winning 4,204 and losing 4,243. (just a FYI, the Angels who also started play in 1961 have won 4,220 games). Over the 53 years and 8,455 games … Continue reading →

Due to the extended rain delay of four hours and 23 minutes, the Chicago White Sox are offering fans with tickets to Sunday’s game a complimentary ticket to a home game in April 2014 (excludes Opening Day and Boston series). … Continue reading →

The Twins will have three starters that will start 20 or more games during this 2013 season. Kevin Correia, Mike Pelfrey, and Scott Diamond have all passed that mark and there is no chance of anyone else joining that group. … Continue reading →

The Twins and Terry Ryan have put in a lot of time this off-season to try to round up some pitchers that they can put in the starting rotation so that manager Gardenhire can hopefully call on each of them to start 30-35 games … Continue reading →

June 25, 2011 – To be a good pitcher they say, you need to keep the hitters off balance and you can’t let the hitters get comfortable at the plate. If you look at the Twins pitching history, you will see … Continue reading →

January 22, 2011 – The 2006 Twins pitching staff holds the team record for strikeouts in a single season with 1,164. Johan Santana led the staff with 245 KO’s. On the other hand, the 1994 Twins pitching staff only struck out … Continue reading →

December 23, 2010 – One of the fun things about going to baseball games for me is that you never know when a manager or player ejection will take place over a close play or a bad or missed call by … Continue reading →

July 14, 2010 – I thought that it might be interesting for me to pick my all-time Twins starting 5 pitchers. It turned out to be more difficult than what I had imagined it would be. What do you rank them … Continue reading →

April 10, 2010 – In the Twins 50 years they are 24-26 on opening day. The Twins have had 25 different pitchers take the mound on opening day on their behalf and only four pitchers have had that honor more than … Continue reading →

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July 21, 2009 – A lot of Twins fans were already in bed confident of another Twins win when home plate umpire Mike Muchlinski called Mike Cuddyer out on a close call at the plate at about 12:38 AM local time … Continue reading →